Volume 10 | Issue 7 | Number 1 | Feb 11, 2012
The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus
Dominion From Sea to Sea: America's Pacific Ascendancy
Bruce Cumings
America’s relationship not just toward East Asia,
but to the world. It is an optic that differs
Dominion From Sea to Sea: America's
radically from most American orientations
Pacific Ascendancy
toward the foreign.
By Bruce Cumings
Dominion
From
Sea
to
Sea
(http://www.amazon.com/dp/0300168004/?tag
=theasipacjo0b-20) differs from my other books
in that it does not have so much to say about
Korea or East Asia. Obviously my books on the
Korean
War
John Gast, American Progress, 1872
(http://www.amazon.com/dp/0691101132/?tag
=theasipacjo0b-20) have Korean history as the
The vast majority of Americans who write about
centerpiece, and even my book of essays, Parallax
foreign affairs and foreign policy write from an
Visions: Making Sense of American—East Asian
Atlanticist or Europe-first perspective. It is
Relation
simply assumed that cross-Atlantic relations are
(http://www.amazon.com/dp/0822329247/?tag
paramount, that they are the first priority, and
=theasipacjo0b-20), is a Korea-centric
that they always have been. In fact for 150 years
examination of U.S. relations with China, Japan
from the revolution against the British down to
and Korea. Nevertheless, this new book could
Pearl Harbor, most Americans were uninterested
not have been written without the years of
in Europe, had more or less contempt for the
experience since I first landed in Seoul in 1967.
British, and built the country by turning their
East Asia’s history in the modern period, and its
back to the Atlantic and “facing West” across the
relationship with the United States, gave me an
continent. Of course, many American experts on
optic that was indispensable for examining
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international relations also write about U.S.
None of this seemed to characterize East Asian-
relations with East Asia, but rarely with much
American relations when I first experienced them
discernment or deep knowledge. The best
as a young man. I noticed American soldiers
example of this is Henry Kissinger, a charter
playing sports in the blue colors of the UN
Atlanticist, whose three-volume memoir is very
Command in Korea, but wondered why it was
learned about Europe, but when it comes to
still in existence long after the Korean War had
Japan and China, one is a kabuki play and the
ended (and it still exists today). I noticed the
other is “boxes within boxes.” Academic
obvious racism of most Americans toward
specialists routinely assume that theories derived
Koreans, especially the adults who should have
from
provided better examples to young people like
the
European
experience—like
“realism”—can be applied to East Asia.
me (I was then in the Peace Corps). I noticed the
enormous Yongsan Garrison, occupied
Paradoxically, the only intense period of
successively since the 1880s by the Chinese,
Atlanticism in American history was the half-
Japanese and Americans—and noticed that I
century from 1941 to 1991, when hot war and
could walk merrily through the gates to get a
cold war bound America tightly with Western
good cheeseburger, while Koreans had to
Europe. Since then relations have been
provide identification (in their own country). I
reasonably good between the two sides of the
learned that the overall commander of the huge
Atlantic, of course, but it is not hard to find new
South Korean military was an American—and
difficulties (like how to handle the current
that the singular Korean so many Americans
financial crisis), or new groups emerging (like the
seemed to like best was President Park Chung
“Tea Party”) that hark back to the anti-European
Hee, soon to make himself president-for-life. I
tendencies of the pre-1941 period, which
did not find democracy, equality, or the rule of
wholeheartedly condemned Europeans for their
law—only liberty for Korean and American
“despotism” in the 19th century, or which
businesses to do what they liked. Things only got
condemn them for their “socialism” today. But
worse over the next twenty years (except for the
Atlanticism still suffuses the worldview of the
rapid growth of the economy), until the Korean
American foreign policy elite as well as many
people took matters into their own hands and
intellectuals, who assume that we share with
built an admirable democracy.
Europeans deep values of democracy, equality,
liberty, multilateralism, and the rule of
All this certainly did not reflect Atlanticism, nor
law—especially, the world under the rule of law,
did our relations with Japan (where American
exemplified by the United Nations.
military bases were all over the country long
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after the war ended), or China and North Korea
Asian region continues to be structured by what I
(which the U.S. sought to isolate by all means
call an “archipelago of empire,” namely, the
necessary), or the war in Vietnam. Instead U.S.
hundreds of military bases that still remain in
relations with all of East Asia reflected
place, long after the wars which gave birth to
unilateralism, hierarchy, condescension, a failure
them. In the past fifteen years, however, and
to take any Asian leader seriously (except
particularly after the Iraq War began, this East
perhaps Mao Zedong, for the wrong reasons),
Asian pattern has been extended throughout the
and a pronounced belief in the efficacy of
non-Western world: dozens of new bases in
military force, leading to the militarization of the
Central Asia, the Middle East and Africa; a
entire region—and the vast ocean called the
pronounced unilateralism in foreign policy
Pacific.
(particularly under George W. Bush); a quick
resort to military force to resolve political
In this book I explain why “Pacificism” would
problems (Barack Obama and Bush); and
hardly be a good antonym for Atlanticism, since
stunning disregard for the rule of law. If Bush
among other things it sounds like pacifism, and
invaded Iraq without provocation, drawing the
that is hardly my meaning. Military
condemnation of most of our European allies,
expansionism, beginning with James Polk’s
President Obama assassinates alleged enemies
invasion and dismantling of Mexico in 1846, was
with impunity, and helped to topple the
essential in the American march to the Pacific,
government in Libya by force under the guise of
bringing California into the union, as was Perry’s
a “no fly zone.” Many of our enemies no doubt
“opening” of Japan in 1853—a direct follow-on to
deserve what they get (like Osama bin Laden),
the war with Mexico. Soon, however, the Civil
but this also is a dramatic departure from the
War consumed Americans, and expansionism
norms of international law. It is not, however, a
did not return until the war with Spain and the
departure from the norms of the expansionist
seizure of the Philippines. That experience of
current in American history, going back to Polk.
formal empire receded into the background of
In other words, what I first encountered in Korea
Americans’ consciousness, however, and
and Japan many decades ago is increasingly the
isolation characterized the interwar period. It is
way that the U.S. operates on a world scale. I was
1941 that marks the beginning of the era we are
very lucky to begin to intuit this position at a
still living in, when the U.S. became the
young age, thanks to Koreans and others who
policeman of the world, and the overwhelmingly
gave me a way to critically examine my own
dominant power in the Pacific.
country—while “facing East” across the Pacific.
Today American power throughout the East
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American expansion across the continent and
Japan, Germany, Britain, Italy, South Korea, all
then the Pacific immediately came up against
the industrial powers save France and Russia--
people of color—first native Americans, then
marking a radical break with the European
Mexicans, Chinese in the mid-19th century (early
balance of power and the operation of realpolitik
pioneers in the Gold Rush), and Japanese and
and a radical departure in American history: an
Korean immigrants by the 1890s. Expansion
archipelago of empire.1 The military structure of
across the Pacific was finally blocked only in our
the British Empire was a globe-girdling chain of
time, in the 1950s and ‘60s, by the aroused anti-
strategic naval bases, like the one at Singapore;
imperialism of Koreans, Chinese and
no one in his right mind imagined British army
Vietnamese. Even today, half a century later, few
bases perched on the soil of competing industrial
American leaders have the experience and
nations. 2 The maritime dominance of the
sensibility necessary to treat their counterparts in
American archipelago is far greater than the
East Asia with the same equality, mutual respect,
United Kingdom’s ever was, yet it also has vastly
and open-mindedness that comes so naturally in
superior global air and land forces--and has bases
our Atlanticist relationships. If these ideals of
almost everywhere.
interaction are not quickly fostered across the
Pacific, I am afraid the 21st century will be a very
difficult one in East Asian—American relations.
The following excerpt is from pp. 393-402
Dominion from Sea to Sea
.
Archipelago of Empire
The Archipelago
In the second half of the twentieth century an
This is an American realm with no name, a
entirely new phenomenon emerged in American
territorial presence with little if any standing in
history, namely, the permanent stationing of
the literature of international affairs. The
soldiers in a myriad of foreign bases across the
preferred strategy since Hay’s Open Door was
face of the planet, connected to an enormous
nonterritorial, whether in gaining access to
domestic complex of defense industries. For the
imperial concessions in China a century ago, or
first time in modern history the leading power
in the postwar hegemony connoting a first-
maintained an extensive network of bases on the
among-equals
territory of its allies and economic competitors-4
multilateralism:
American
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preponderance but not dominance, a usage of
benign, and mostly unremarked daily life of
hegemony consistent with its original Greek
subtle constraint, in which the United States kept
meaning in Thucydides or the ancient Roman
allied nations on defense, resource, and, for many
imperium that also connoted nonterritorial
years, financial dependencies. This penetration
power. But hegemony and imperium sound
was clearest in the frontline cold war semi-
equally inappropriate to most Americans: they
sovereign states like Japan, West Germany, and
sound like we run a colonial empire, as if we
South Korea, and it was conceived by people like
were England or Japan seventy years ago. We
Kennan as an indirect, outer-limit control on the
don’t. But we do run a territorial empire--the
worst outcome, namely, orientation to the other
archipelago of somewhere between 737 and 860
side--what John McMurtry calls “determination
overseas military installations around the world,
by constraint”: it simultaneously constrains and
with American military personnel operating in
leaves a significant degree of autonomy. 5 The
153 countries, which most Americans know little
aggressors in World War II, Japan and Germany,
if anything about--a kind of stealth empire,
were tied down by American bases, and they
“hidden in plain sight” as Kathy Ferguson and
remain so: in the seventh decade after the war we
4
Phyllis Turnbull put it, one part of which can
still don’t know what either nation would look
occasionally be closed down (like U.S. bases in
like if it were truly independent. We aren’t going
the Philippines in 1992) but which persists
to find out anytime soon, either.
3
because it is politically and culturally invisible, at
In an important interpretation Robert Latham
least to Americans.
calls this structure the American “external state”
The postwar order took shape through positive
and views it as a central element of liberal world-
policy and through the establishment of distinct
order building. The “free world” connoted a
outer limits, the transgression of which was rare
realm of liberal democracies and authoritarian
or even inconceivable, provoking immediate
client states. It was Acheson’s liberal order, and it
crisis--the orientation of West Berlin toward the
also led to a vast global militarization (by the
Soviet bloc, for example. That’s what the bases
1960s encompassing 1.5 million American troops
were put there for, to defend our allies but also to
stationed in hundreds of bases in thirty-five
limit their choices--a light hold on the jugular,
countries, with formal security commitments to
which might sound too strong until Americans
forty-three countries, the training and equipping
ask themselves, what would we think of myriad
of military forces in seventy countries), a
foreign bases on our soil? The typical experience
phenomenon often treated as an unfortunate
of this hegemony, however, was a mundane,
result of the bipolar confrontation with Moscow.6
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In another sense our troops in Japan and
conference where he sounded just like Mills by
Germany are also their external state because
remarking that the armaments industry was so
without the bases they would have to rearm
pervasive that it affected “almost an insidious
dramatically.
penetration of our own minds,” making
Americans think that the only thing the country
This permanent transnational military structure
does is produce weapons and missiles.7 When
has not gone from victory to victory. Since 1950
Western communism collapsed it appeared for a
the United States has fought four major wars--
few years that a serious reduction in the
Korea, Vietnam, the Persian Gulf, and Iraq--and
permanent military might occur, but “rogue
has only won one of them (at this writing). But
states” kept it going and then the “war on terror”
outcomes have little impact on the archipelago’s
provided another amorphous, open-ended global
permanency. Win, lose, or draw, the wars end
commitment.
but, the military no longer deflates and the
troops no longer come home (with the exception
This archipelago is the clearest territorial (and
of Vietnam: and had we been able to stabilize
therefore imperial) element in the American
South Vietnam, they would still be there). The
position in the world, and it has its domestic
United States won a decisive victory in 1945, but
counterpart in a host of home military bases and
the troops did not come home then, either: some
industries that serve defense needs, and in a
100,000 troops remain in Japan and Germany,
highly lucrative revolving door where generals
just as the stalemate in Korea left 30,000 to 40,000
retire to become defense industry executives and
there.
industry executives take furloughs to run
Washington agencies. (In 2001, for example,
The Korean War was the occasion for building a
George W. Bush appointed Peter Teets, chief
permanent standing military and a national
operating officer of Lockheed Martin, to run the
security state where none had existed before, as
National Reconnaissance Office--by far the best-
containing communism became an open-ended,
funded intelligence agency; meanwhile the
global proposition. A mere decade later President
former NRO director, Jeff Harris, took a job with
Eisenhower could say that “we have been
Lockheed Space Systems.)8 Yet this archipelago is
compelled to create a permanent armaments
one of the most unstudied phenomena in
industry of vast proportions,” employing 3.5
American life. Although millions of Americans
million people in the defense establishment and
have inhabited these bases, their global
spending more than “the net income of all United
landscape is so commonly unknown that its full
States corporations.” That was from his farewell
dimensions almost always come as a surprise to
address; less remembered is Ike’s final news
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the uninitiated (or to the initiates themselves:
loomed, then coming back when Reagan asked
according to two eyewitnesses, when he arrived
him to be secretary of state.
at the Pentagon in 2001 Secretary of Defense
9
Long before George Shultz shifted from
Donald Rumsfeld was surprised to learn that
Washington to Bechtel and back, John McCone
Korea still held 40,000 American troops).
was an individual paradigm of the nexus
There is a military-industrial complex, and
between national security and industry--linking
certain firms are closely identified with this
high position in Washington with Bechtel,
archipelago because they helped to build it:
defense firms, major oil companies, and vast
Bechtel for example. But it is difficult for
construction projects in the Persian Gulf. He was
outsiders to assess how things work, as Mills
one of the first westerners to join the
suggested, and easy to overestimate their
establishment, and he was a charter member of
influence. When the Bechtel Group sent Caspar
the
Weinberger and George Shultz to serve in the
extraordinary staying power. After getting an
Reagan administration, it was hard not to see a
engineering degree from Berkeley, he moved up
California conspiracy in the works: presumably
to executive authority at Llewellyn Iron Works in
power was now shifting radically west. In fact,
Los Angeles, which provided steel fittings for the
Bechtel happily slurped at the federal trough for
Boulder Dam. In 1937 he formed B-M-P in Los
decades on a thoroughly bipartisan basis; John
Angeles, specializing in the design and
McCone, after all, was Kennedy’s CIA chief, and
construction of petroleum refineries and power
Bechtel’s candidate in 1980 was not Reagan but
plants for installation throughout the United
Texas Democrat John Connally. Furthermore,
States, South America, and the Persian Gulf.
George Shultz had no respect for Weinberger
After the war began his company built and
going back to the Nixon administration when
managed the air force’s modification center in
Shultz ran the Office of Management and Budget
Birmingham where B-24 and B-29 bombers were
and Weinberger was his deputy; Shultz routinely
fitted out for combat, and through an affiliate
bypassed Weinberger to get advice from Arnold
called Pacific Tankers, he operated an extensive
K. Weber, a former colleague from the University
fleet of oil tankers for the U.S. Navy. By the 1950s
of Chicago. Shultz was a savvy and
a very wealthy man, he was the second largest
unpretentious Henry Kissinger for one
shareholder in Standard Oil of California. During
Republican administration or corporation after
the cold war he held one sensitive post after
another, leaving Washington in May 1974 to run
another. He was a special assistant to then
Bechtel as Nixon’s imminent impeachment
Secretary of Defense James Forrestal in 1948,
7
military-industrial
complex
with
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undersecretary of the air force in 1950, head of
But after the victory, the military blended back
the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), and
into the woodwork of American life. The army
subsequently director of the CIA under both
reached 50,000 during the war with Mexico, then
Eisenhower and Kennedy. Just at the time
dropped to about 10,000 soldiers, 90 percent of
McCone became director of the AEC (a position
them arrayed against Indians in the trans-
that led Dwight Eisenhower to include him in the
Mississippi West at seventy-nine posts and
National Security Council), his friend Kenneth
trailside forts. The military ballooned into
Davis left his position as director of reactor
millions of citizen-soldiers during the Civil War
development at the AEC to go to work for
and the two world wars, but always the army
Bechtel. 10 Bechtel, Shultz, Weinberger, and
withered within months and years of victory--to
McCone are about a structure of state and
a 25,000-soldier constabulary in the late
corporate interests and a conservative
nineteenth century (at a time when France had
Republican style of politics and business, a
half a million soldiers, Germany had 419,000, and
rightward-leaning
laissez-faire
continental-nation Russia had 766,000), a
industrialism that hews closely to the state: but
neglected force of 135,000 between the world
that has been true since the Six Companies built
wars, and a rapid (if temporary) shrinkage
the Hoover Dam. And then there are all the
immediately after 1945. Likewise the navy
Democrats who are part of the same elite, with
declined quickly after the Civil War in spite of
liberal inflections.
American prowess in ship technology, with the
ostensibly
Asiatic Squadron retaining only five or six
A Waxing and Waning Military
dilapidated gunboats. A permanent gain
followed each war, but until 1941 the American
Until 1950 Americans never supported a large
military remained modest in size compared to
standing army, and the military was a negligible
other great powers, not well funded, not very
factor in American history and culture, apart
influential, and indeed not really a respected
from its performance in wars. The Constitution
profession. Military spending was less than 1
itself “was constructed in fear of a powerful
percent of GNP throughout the nineteenth
military establishment,” the constituent states
century and well into the twentieth.11
had their own independent militias, and only the
navy seemed consonant with American
The nineteenth-century American military was
conceptions of the uses of national military force.
hardly a negligible fighting force. It was small
Americans loved victorious generals like
but effective, flexible, worthy to its main task--
Washington, Jackson, Taylor, Grant, and
fighting Indians--and capable of almost
Eisenhower enough to make them presidents.
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immediate expansion because so many citizens
wrote, “there hang wisps of gun smoke from the
were virtual automatic patriots and also adept
Civil War.” A few officers sought to fashion a
with weapons. This was a democratic army
military that could be used to extend American
drawn from a male population the vast majority
power abroad--always to the west or across the
of whom owned a rifle, a core strength that
Pacific, with afterthoughts about Central
enabled it to inflate and deflate rapidly. It was
America but never Europe. Until the 1940s none
posted around the country and along the
succeeded. Captain Arthur MacArthur (Douglas
frontiers in small forts, but its extraordinary
MacArthur’s father) authored his “Chinese
decentralization was also an asset in fighting
Memorandum” in 1883, arguing that “a
skirmishes and even guerrilla wars with
commanding and progressive nation” would
Indians.12
only materialize when “we secure and maintain
the soverignty [sic] of the Pacific,” but his memo
was unread by anyone except his underlings
until discovered in the archives a hundred years
later. For Army Chief of Staff Hugh L. Scott, the
army was “little more than a national
constabulary” before the war with Spain.13
McKinley-Roosevelt Secretary of War Elihu Root
reorganized the army, raising its strength to
100,000, and in 1912, as we have seen, the War
Department created a colonial army for the
Philippines, Hawaii, and the Canal Zone, which,
although often understaffed, lasted until World
Ben Cabrera Mural
War II and created a “cadre of semipermanent
Of course, the nineteenth-century army was
colonials” (in Linn’s words) with much Pacific
configured to fight overmatched Indians and to
experience. They volunteered for two years in the
defend a continent that no one was likely to
Philippines or three in Hawaii and often repeated
attack; two oceans provided their own security.
their tours of duty. In 1903 Douglas MacArthur
By the time Indians were pacified, most
graduated from West Point--having finished first
Americans couldn’t figure out a further use for it:
in his class for three of his four years and
around the old army general of the 1890s “in his
achieving a merit rating topped only by Robert E.
neatly disheveled blue uniform,” C. Wright Mills
Lee. Soon he arrived in the Philippines with the
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Third Engineer Battalion and after two years
current dollars, and it reached that maximum
became aide-de-camp to his father, Arthur.
point again in the early part of this new century--
Douglas had an epiphany on a 1905 tour of
a sum greater than the combined defense
military installations in Asia: here in the Orient
budgets of the next eighteen ranking military
was “western civilization’s last earth frontier”; he
powers in 2009.
convinced himself that American destiny and
A Pacificist Orientation to the World
indeed “the future” were “irrevocably entwined
with Asia and its island outposts.” 1 4 But
Ever since General Douglas MacArthur issued
MacArthur quickly settled into the unhurried,
General Order Number One on 15 August, 1945,
idyllic life of the Pacific Army. Then came Pearl
excluding Allied powers from the occupation of
Harbor and instantaneous national mobilization
Japan (except in fig-leaf form), dividing Korea at
to over 8 million in uniform, but again Truman
the 38th parallel and Vietnam at the 16th parallel,
shrank the military: the army had 554,000
and seeking to unify China under Chiang Kai-
soldiers by 1948; the navy’s budget of $50 billion
shek’s rule by requiring Japanese soldiers in
in 1945 slipped to $6 billion, and the air force
China to surrender to Nationalist forces,
watched most of its contracts get cancelled
American decisions have shaped the basic
(aircraft industry sales dropped from $16 billion
structure of international relations in the East
in 1944 to $1.2 billion in 1947). Defense spending
Asian region. The only part of that military
fell to $13 billion a year, or about $150 billion in
division that did not hold was China, and after
current dollars.
15
the Communists cleared the mainland in 1948–49
a new division took place: that between Taiwan
The American military was still not a significant
and the People’s Republic of China (PRC), as the
factor in national life before NSC-68 announced
Seventh Fleet moved into the Taiwan Strait.
the answer to how much “preparedness” the
MacArthur ruled Japan as a benevolent emperor,
country needed, thus closing a long American
while the Korean War resulted in a vastly
debate: and in mainstream Washington, it has
deepened division of Northeast Asia: a heavily
never returned. Isolationists, of course, got
fortified demilitarized zone replaced the 38th
blamed for the lack of military preparation in
parallel and remains to this day a museum of the
1941, but the debate about America’s role in the
defunct global cold war. For a generation China
world and what kind of military it should have is
was excluded from the postwar global system by
as old as the country itself: was it a republic or an
its own radicalism, and by American blockade
empire? During the Korean War the United
and war threats. The archipelago of bases was the
States was spending $650 billion on defense in
coercive structure that locked in the American
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position in the North Pacific, offering a diffuse
Successive administrations wanted Japan to
but palpable leverage over allies. The United
“share burdens” in the defense of the Pacific, but
States had bases all over Western Europe, too; the
because any enlargement would be done under
difference was that unlike Europe, no NATO
the American security umbrella, Japan’s leaders
existed nor any ally capable of independent
resisted all but foot-dragging and creeping
action. No one really cared whether the Japanese
rearmament, through incremental defense
or Koreans or Filipinos or Chinese on Taiwan
increases. Today the country still recalcitrantly
supported such policies, Americans just went
spends less than 1 per cent of its GNP on defense,
ahead more or less as they pleased. The
and it is still impossible to imagine another
archipelago of empire in East Asia completely
Admiral Togo building great aircraft carriers or
neutered the Pacific rivalry between Japan and
another Admiral Yamamoto putting nuclear
the United States that occupied the half-century
submarines in the water. Japan remains entirely
before Pearl Harbor. An outgrowth of World War
open to the permanent stationing of American
II and Korea, this extensive base structure now
“land, air, and sea forces in and about Japan,” in
persists into the current century as if nothing had
the words of the United States–Japan Security
changed.
Treaty; the treaty also gave the United States the
right to use the armed forces it stations in Japan
In 1947 George Kennan and Dean Acheson
in any way of its choosing--and it did so in Korea
developed a strategy for Japan’s revival: both
and Vietnam.16
understood that Japan was the only serious
industrial power in Asia and therefore the only
The long-term result of this American
serious military threat; Kennan wanted it again
unilateralism in East Asia may be summarized as
to be a strong military nation, to re-create the
follows: it was an asymmetrical hub-and-spokes
turn-of-the-century balance of power in East
system in which the noncommunist countries of
Asia, but Acheson was shrewder in shaping a
the region tended to communicate with each
Japan with its industry revived and integrated
other through the United States, a vertical regime
into the American realm, an engine of the world
solidified by bilateral defense treaties (with
economy and an American-defined “economic
Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and the Philippines)
animal”--but one shorn of its prewar military and
and conducted by a State Department that
political clout. This occurred coterminously with
towered over the foreign ministries of these four
the emergence of the cold war and deepened
countries. The countries of the East Asian region
dramatically as Japan benefited tremendously
might as well have been “hermit kingdoms” vis-
from America’s wars in Korea and Vietnam.
à-vis each other, if not in relation to the United
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States: China didn’t talk to Taiwan or South
multilateral institutions and mechanisms of
Korea; not even personal mail passed between
cooperation and conciliation today, and even
the two Koreas; both Koreas hated Japan; and
fewer through most of the postwar period. There
Japanese diplomacy looked to the United States,
was and is no NATO. There once was a SEATO
Europe, and Southeast Asia--but not to its near
(Southeast Asia Treaty Organization), but it
reaches. Each of them became semi-sovereign
never amounted to much, never spawned a
states, deeply penetrated by American military
NEATO, and died after two decades. There was a
structures (operational control of the South
rump Marshall Plan (the ECA or Economic
Korean armed forces, U.S. Seventh Fleet
Cooperation Administration, which aided South
patrolling of the Taiwan Strait, defense
Korea and Taiwan from 1947 onward). Like the
dependencies for all four countries, military
Marshall Plan in Europe, the ECA was
bases on their territory), and incapable of
superseded by the revival of the advanced
anything resembling independent foreign policy
industrial economies--in this case the only one in
or defense initiatives. The only serious breach in
the region, Japan. Nothing like the Conference on
this system has been the rise of China, which put
Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE)
Taiwan in the shade of American concerns: but
emerged, the Organization of Economic
this change, too, owed as much to Richard
Cooperation and Development (OECD) was
Nixon’s opening to China as to anything the
remote, and the theoretically all-inclusive United
Chinese leadership did; Nixon, Kissinger, and
Nations was essentially an American operation in
Carter unceremoniously dumped Taiwan and the
East Asia (as if anachronism, even atavism were
American treaty commitment to it. Of course,
the name of the game, U.S. troops in Korea still
Japanese leaders have contributed to the
sit under the blue flag of the 1950 United Nations
continuing divisions of the region by failing to
Command). There is a modest alphabet soup of
reckon seriously with their aggression against
Southeast Asian international organizations--
their neighbors, quite in contrast to Germany. But
ASEAN, APEC, ARF--but none of these groups
that, too, was originally something encouraged
deploy the power and influence of a single
by American policy, the Japanese leaders it
American carrier task force, and even if they did,
supported, and the very soft peace Japan got in
their tradition is one of mutual respect, never-
the late 1940s.
ending consultation, and nonintervention in each
other’s affairs--even the affairs of a human rights
The postwar settlement thus remains the
nightmare like Burma. Even where you might
determining mechanism in explaining why East
expect to find multilateral organizations--in the
Asia, when compared to Europe, has so few
financial, monetary, and economic realm, given
12
10 | 7 | 1
APJ | JF
the economic strength of the region--cooperation
expansionism.)
“remains extremely limited, at least by European
the seven-year occupation of Japan, and the
standards.” 1 7 Here too, the United States
security structures that still hold sway in the new
dominates.
century were, in this sense, Douglas MacArthur’s
18
General Order Number One,
way of paying homage to his father--Pacificism,
China’s turn outward since the 1970s expressed
American-style.
the way in which economic forces in the region
have eroded and bypassed cold war boundaries,
Bruce Cumings is chair of the History
bringing former adversaries back into contact--
Department at the University of Chicago. Author
but primarily through business contacts and pop
of
culture, not through multilateral institutions. If
(http://www.amazon.com/dp/0691101132/?tag
the first phase of the cold war emphasized
=theasipacjo0b-20), he has also written for the
security considerations and divided the region,
New York Review of Books
, the New Left Review
,
and the second phase exemplified the
the London Review of Books
, and the Nation. He is
ascendancy of economic development and
an Asia-Pacific Journalassociate. His most recent
accelerated regional integration, it is important to
book, from which this is drawn, is Dominion from
remember that both these tendencies occurred
Sea to Sea: Pacific Ascendancy and American Power
primarily because of basic shifts in American
(http://www.amazon.com/dp/0300168004/?tag
foreign policy and the resulting pressures on East
=theasipacjo0b-20).
Asian states. Contemporary obstacles to deeper
The
Origins
of
the
Korean
War
Recommended citation: Bruce Cumings,
Dominion
'
integration in the region also trace back to
from Sea to Sea: America's Pacific Ascendancy,'
Washington (although not only to Washington).
The Asia-Pacific Journal Vol 10, Issue 7 No 1,
Later we will have occasion to examine how
February 13, 2012.
contemporary American policy toward the entire
world increasingly seems like a redirection of the
Notes
Pacific pattern of unilateralism. But that very
1
pattern was also the elaboration of a century-long
In May 1966 de Gaulle said he wanted “full
sovereignty [over] French territory” and so asked
practice of moving and facing West, with allies
Washington to take American forces and bases
absent and little concern for what the people in
home. See Johnson (2004), 194.
the way of that advance had to say. (If there is a
precedent it certainly isn’t Atlanticism--Central
2
American interventions bring us closer, but they
I am indebted to Patrick Karl O’Brien for
discussion on these points, and for his paper,
were often part and parcel of Pacific
“The Pax Brittannica and the International Order,
13
10 | 7 | 1
APJ | JF
1688–1914,” presented at the Osaka University of
Johnson (2004), 79–80.
8
Foreign Studies Workshop on Global History,
9
November 22–23, 1999.
3
Laton McCartney, Friends in High Places: The
Bechtel Story: The Most Secret Corporation and How
New York: Ballantine
Peter J. Katzenstein, A World of Regions: Asia and It Engineered the World.
Books, 1988, 167–68, 170, 177, 178–79, 213–14.
Europe in the American Imperium
. Ithaca: Cornell
University Press, 2005. 2.
10
U.S. Senate, Committee on Armed Services, 87th
The number changes frequently; these are
Congress, January 18, 1962, “Nominations of
Defense Department figures in Chalmers
McCone, Korth, and Harlan” (Washington, D.C.:
4
Johnson, The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, SecrecyGovernment Printing Office,1962), 35; Joint
Committee on Atomic Energy, U.S. Senate, 85th
and the End of the Republic
. New York: Henry
Holt, 2004, 4–5, and Johnson, Nemesis: The Last Congress, July 2, 1958, “Nomination of John A.
Days of the American Republic
. New York: Henry
McCone to be a Member of the Atomic Energy
Holt, 2006, 5–6. See also Kathy E. Ferguson and
Commission” (Washington, D.C.: Government
Phyllis Turnbull, Oh, Say, Can You See? The Printing Office, 1958), 2–18, 56. I am indebted to
Meredith Jung-en Woo for these sources.
Semiotics of the Military in Hawai’i
. Minneapolis,
University of Minnesota Press, 1999, xiii.
5
11
C. Wright Mills, The Power Elite
. New York:
McMurtry quoted in Daniel Little, The Scientific Oxford University Press, 1956, 175–76; John D.
Marx. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota
Unruh, The Plains Across: The Overland Emigrants
Press, 1986, 53–54; see also p. 58.
and the Trans-Mississippi West, 1840-60
. Urbana:
6
Robert Latham, The Liberal Moment: Modernity,
7
Eisenhower quoted in Michael S. Sherry, In the
University of Illinois Press, 1979, 201, 210;
Marcus Cunliffe, Soldiers and Civilians: The Martial
Security, and the Making of the Postwar International
Spirit in America, 1775-1865. Boston: Little Brown,
Order. New York: Columbia University Press,
1968, ch. 1; David M. Pletcher, The Diplomacy of
1997. Marx referred to nineteenth-century
Involvement: American Economic Expansion Across
colonies as “the state externally.” See Karl Marx,
the Pacific, 1784-1900. New York: Columbia
Grundrisse: Foundation of the Critique of Political
University Press, 2001, 119; E. J. Hobsbawm, The
Economy. New York: Vintage Books, 1973, 264.
Age of Empire, 1875-1914
. New York: Pantheon
Books, 1987, 351; Sherry (1995), 5.
Shadow of War: The United States since the 1930s
. 12
New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995, 233–35.
Walter LaFeber, The American Age: United States
Foreign Policy at Home and Abroad Since 1750
. New
York: W.W. Norton, 1989, 11; Ira Katznelson in
14
10 | 7 | 1
APJ | JF
.
Katznelson and Martin Shefter, Shaped by War and Americans and the Remaking of Japan, 1945-1952
Trade: International Influences on American PoliticalKent Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1989, 259,
Development. Princeton: Princeton University
269; Bruce Cumings, The Origins of the Korean
Press, 2002, 90–92, 98–99.
War, II: The Roaring of the Cataract, 1947-1950
.
13
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990,
Mills (1956), 179; Brian McAlister Linn,
45–58.
Guardians of Empire: The U.S. Army and the Pacific
,
1902-1940. Chapel Hill: University of North
17
Carolina Press, 1997, 6, 52.
14
Katzenstein (2005), 35, 136–37, 219–20.
18
Linn (1997), 53, 62–65; Fred Anderson and
Greg Grandin is right to locate some of the roots
of George W. Bush’s unilateralism in Reagan
Andrew Cayton, The Dominion of War: Empire andadministration interventions in Nicaragua and
Liberty in North America, 1500-2000
. New York:
Guatemala, with John Negroponte, John Bolton,
Viking, 2005, 342–43.
Elliott Abrams, and other neoconservatives
15
Russell F. Weigley, History of the United States
Army. New York: Macmillan, 1967, 475, 486, 568;
Gerald T. White, Billions for Defense: Government
playing important roles. See Grandin, Empire’s
Workshop: Latin America, the United States, and the
R i s e o f t h e N e w I m p e r i a l i s mN
. ew York:
Metropolitan Books, 2006, 5–6. But these
Financing by the Defense Plant Corporation During
interventions were little different from the
World War II. University: University of Alabama
multitude of similar episodes going back to the
Press, 1980, 1–2.
war with Spain, and all of them were subordinate
16
Howard B. Schonberger, Aftermath of War: to the more important Pacific and East Asian
involvements.
15